World War II Combat: Road to Berlin is a budget-priced first-person shooter

First-person shooter

First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...

, developed by Direct Action Games and published by Groove Games

Groove Games

Groove Games was a Canadian developer and publisher of computer and video games. Established in 2001, Groove Games had published more than 20 retail game titles on the PC, Xbox, and PlayStation 2 platforms....

. Despite its low-budget price, it has been panned by users and reviewers as having shoddy control, and a rushed, unfinished feel. The game was followed by World War II Combat: Iwo Jima

World War II Combat: Iwo Jima

World War II Combat: Iwo Jima is a budget-priced first-person shooter developed by Direct Action Games and published by Groove Games. Like its predecessor, World War II Combat: Road to Berlin, it received extremely negative reviews from reviewers and users alike...

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Story

World War II Combat: Road to Berlin takes place during the final days of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. The Germans have been developing secret long-range rockets (called "Vengeance Weapons") that they could use to attack opposing countries. Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

, the leader of the Soviet Union at the time, wanted to get hold of these rockets in his attempt to dominate the western world. Since the Soviets were the lesser of the two evils at this time of the war, the Soviet Union joined Britain's battle. This meant that the Allies could not battle the Soviets to prevent them from getting hold of the Vengeance Weapons, but rather, they had to race against them to make sure that the weapons did not fall into Stalin's hands. Players take control of Stephen Moore, an officer of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), a precursor to the CIA. The events that take place in this game are invented, bearing in mind that this storyline is completely fictitious and the "weapons", if any, truly did fall into Soviet hands.

Criticism

Reviewers have dismissed World War II Combat: Road to Berlin as being one of the worst games to be released on the PC and Xbox. Chunky player movement and aiming made it virtually impossible to get a good aim on enemies, which proved to be frustrating because the enemy soldiers could shoot at the player with pinpoint accuracy even if they were a far distance away from the player. Many other elements also added to the frustration. The player could not pick up any med-kits, and health only recharged at the end of each mission. The game automatically assigns weapons for each mission, which included a pistol, a secondary weapon, and an explosive weapon. However, only one weapon could be put in the secondary slot. This meant that in the sniper missions, since the sniper rifle is your secondary weapon, players could only use the pistol for close combat. However, the worst aspect for many players was that the Allied soldiers would some times shoot at the player instead of the enemy. This was especially irritating because friendly fire could not be turned off.

The game wasn't much better in terms of graphics. Vehicles had no actual animations, and characters looked very blocky, just like much of the environments and level designs in the game. Additionally, while the game does have a multiplayer mode, the network code was extremely glitchy. Constant lag issues caused players to randomly "teleport" back and forth on maps. About half of the time, bullets could pass right through opponents like they weren't there, again due to lag issues. The game also featured offline play with bots, but the bot AI constantly cheated to get 100% accuracy, making offline play just as unplayable as the online play.

The GameSpot

GameSpot

GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...

 and Official Xbox Magazine

Official Xbox Magazine

Official Xbox Magazine is a monthly video game magazine which started in November 2001 around the launch of the original Xbox. A preview issue was released for E3 2001, with another preview issue for November 2001. The magazine is bundled with a disc that includes game demos, preview videos and...

(June 2006 issue) reviews were extremely negative. GameSpot gave it a 2.0 / 10 (terrible) and Official Xbox Magazine gave it a record low score of 1.0 / 10. This is only the Third game rated a 1.0 / 10.0 by OXM, the other 2 are Pulse Racer & Bad Boys: Miami Takedown

Bad Boys: Miami Takedown

Bad Boys: Miami Takedown is a video game released in 2004 based on the action-comedy movie Bad Boys II starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence...

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External links

• World War II Combat: Road to Berlin - Official website